


Dreams, New and Old

by Ramenlover



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fix-It, Johnny is gonna save V if it's the last thing he does, Platonic Relationships, Spoilers, Spoilers for Panam's ending, happy ending sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28358862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramenlover/pseuds/Ramenlover
Summary: V makes her choice but Johnny isn't prepared to just let her go.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand & Female V, Judy Alvarez/Female V
Comments: 46
Kudos: 433





	1. Reasons for Leaving

Panam paced. The metal grating of the Mikoshi walkway rang beneath her boots, the only noise now that the distant alarms had been silenced. Nothing was happening. She had Saul’s blood staining her clothes and nothing was happening.

“What’s taking so long?” she demanded to the empty air.

There was a long, long pause then finally the synthetic voice of Alt said, “There are complications.” Out of everything that could have been said, that was maybe the _worst_ thing. Complications? After everything they’d done to get here? All the people they’d lost?

“What sort of complications?” Her voice was too loud in her ears.

Another long silence filled with the ringing of Panam’s steps.

“They are being dealt with.”

After that Alt remained silent, ignoring all of Panam’s questions and demands. Finally, Panam forced herself to sit down next to V’s catatonic body half-submerged in the coolant; she reached into the liquid and found V’s hand, squeezing it tight. Maybe if she could be some kind of anchor in the real world then V would find her way back? She had to come back. Would come back. There was no other option that Panam could live with.

“Please, V,” Panam whispered.

The silence continued.

What if they’d been too late? V had been so ill when she’d arrived, looked so weak like every move and breath was a struggle. What if there’d never been any chance at all? What if Panam had dragged her clan into tragedy for nothing? What if Saul had died for nothing?

V gasped awake. Her limbs spasmed outward and she flailed in the coolant sending waves of it everywhere. Struggling with her, Panam yanked the chord out of her head and heaved her up onto the side.

“You made it.” The relief in Panam’s gut was a great crashing wave that swept the worries and panicking what-ifs aside leaving only warmth in its wake. “Fuck, V, you scared me.” Instead of answering, V just blinked up at the ceiling, her eyes rolling back.

“The process was taxing,” Alt’s voice said. “You should leave. The elevator outside should deposit you near the tunnels where your convoy is.”

No need to say that twice. Panam pulled V onto her feet and helped her stagger towards the door. For the briefest moment, V resisted. She twisted her head around, eyes searching the ceiling. “Remember,” she croaked. “Remember our deal.” Alt said nothing and V’s eyes flickered, legs almost giving out from under her.

“Deal?” Panam tried to ask but V’s just head lolled against her shoulder and Panam once again found herself dealing with the full weight of an unconscious merc. A merc that she would eventually realise was not the one she’d entered the building with.

*

Johnny’s head was pounding. It felt like someone had hammered nails into his skull and was taking great delight in smacking them with an even larger hammer. Either that or three hundred Dennys were using his skull as a drum kit.

On the few occasions that he managed to open his eyes, the light was a great blistering thing that scorched him and made the pounding so much worse. So he was forced to lie there in the painful dark and think about what had happened. What he’d done.

It’d been V’s choice. It had _always_ been V’s choice. She’d chosen to let go, chosen to give him her body, chosen to go beyond the Blackwall. Alt had told him to accept it, respect it but… What fucking choice was that? Die now or die after six months of pain? That wasn’t a choice.

“There are no other options,” Alt had told him.

“Don’t lie to me,” he’d said and watched her digital face rearrange itself into something like an affronted scowl. “There’s always another choice, Alt, you know there is. I swore to V that I’d save her and I’m not about to let some bullshit like her own body get in the way, you hear me?”

Alt had hovered just in front of him, her face so familiar, so alien. “What do you intend to do?”

“Got no idea yet,” he’d said. “But I need time, please, Alt. Just keep her safe until I can figure something out?”

At that Alt had even managed a frown. “Why should I? As an engram V is powerful, useful, as part of me she will become something greater.”

“There are other AI,” he’d said. “Real strong, almost as strong as you. They’d do you way more good than V ever could.”

“They are out of my reach.” But he could already see his plan forming in her mind, she could read it in his code. “You would assist me in finding these AI? Freeing them?”

“Give you my word.” How many promises was he going to make before this was over? “Keep V safe and I’ll help you track down all of them.”

Eventually, Alt had agreed because she lost nothing either way. “I will give you a year,” she’d said. “Any more than that and V’s code could risk corruption without correct support.”

A year. Yeah, he could do this in a year. As he’d plummeted back towards V’s body, he’d began furiously planning. He was Johnny Fucking Silverhand. He’d crippled Araska once, he’d helped cripple it again. With enough time, there was nothing he couldn’t do. As his senses began to calm, the beginning of a plan had formed inside his head.

He cracked open his eyes. Above him was the sloping canvas ceiling of a tent and he could distantly hear the sound of people, engines and the howl of the desert wind. The nomad camp. Of course. Despite how fucked his head had been, he could vaguely remember coming round every so often in the seat of a car, Panam’s worried voice calling out to him. What had he said to her? He thought he must have spoken?

There was someone else in the room with him. Turning his aching neck, he saw Panam sitting in a chair facing him. One foot tapped on the ground and her fists kept clenching and unclenching. There was blood on her clothes and, as she looked up at him, tears on her face.

“Johnny,” she hissed. Her voice was freezing, arctic cold.

Swallowing thickly, he sat up and nodded. So she knew.

“You kept saying, ‘I’m not’ while we were driving,” she said and her voice was soft and deadly. “At first I thought you were just delirious but then I started to realise you said it every time I called you V.” Her eyes were furious narrow slits glittering in the half-light of the tent. “What the fuck did you do to her?”

“This body was killing her,” he said, raising both hands as she almost sprang out of her seat. “Calm the fuck down, this isn’t over. I got Alt to look after V till I can find some way to fix it.”

“Saul already died trying to fix this!” Panam screamed, on her feet, standing over him. “My friends _died_ trying to fix what you did to her, you fucking cancer.”

“I know,” he snapped. “But was either this or she start dying again without me. This way she might have a chance. Will you at least listen?” Fists shaking at her sides, Panam just glared at him and he decided that that was close enough. “Remember Hellman? After you helped catch him, V managed to get the plans for my biochip from him. Plans that I’ve still got. Look if you don’t believe me.” He sent them over to her and she folded her arms, scanning them over. “All we gotta do is find some way to build another one, shove V’s brain into and then get her a new body. It works. I’m proof of that.”

Panam’s face cleared and, very slowly, the tension bled out of her. “You’re serious?” she asked.

“I made her promise.”

She turned away from him, began pacing the cramped length of the tent. “Okay so say you do it, say you get the chip. You just gonna stick it in some random corpse? What if it wakes them up like you did V? Then you’ve got the same problem.”

Cautiously putting his feet to the floor, Johnny tapped his knees, trying to eject the anxious energy coursing through him. “Hanako said the body had to be unoccupied. She didn’t say dead.”

Panam paused and frowned at him.

“This was just meant to be used by the Arasakas,” he continued and the plan was blossoming inside his head. Just the sketchy outlines at first but something solid, something _real_. “They wouldn’t use any random body, they’d have special custom made ones exactly how they liked.”

“Clones,” Panam whispered. Her eyes were wide and she was looking at him with gradually lessening hostility.

Spreading out his arms, Johnny risked a grin. “I mean, I got all the DNA I need right here.”

“You mean ‘we’,” she said and he blinked at her. “I promised V I’d help and you’re my best option.” When he tried to argue, she dragged the chair to be directly in front of him and slammed herself down into it. “My friends died for V, it is my responsibility to make sure their deaths mean something.”

Johnny stared at her, he tried to unpack her expression, the intensity in her eyes, tried to figure out what was happening in her brain. “More could die. _You_ could die.”

“V-” She began then looked away. “V’s my best friend, she’s my sister now. She’s a part of my family and I would do anything for my family. You understand?”

Before he’d died, Johnny would probably have laughed at her. Loyalty was a weird and wonderful concept for the Johnny Silverhand of old but the Johnny Silverhand of now got it. He really, really got it.

“Need to call Rogue,” he said and got to his feet. “She should have the contacts we need. Oh and Judy. We’re gonna need a good techie, preferably one we know we can trust.” He allowed a grin to spread across his face. “We’re gonna save her, Panam. I dunno how far we need to go but we’re gonna do it.”

Panam held her hand out towards him. “I’m holding you to that.”

He took her hand and yet another promise was made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is based on my version of V who was a techie, hacker and very big on stealth


	2. Reasons for Staying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> V celebrates a job well done but she can't quite shake the feeling something isn't right.

For just the briefest moment, V felt the whole world rock. Head spinning, she stumbled forward and a hand grabbed her shoulder steadying her.

“Hey, chica,” Jackie said. “You lookin’ a little green there.”

Rubbing her eyes, V blinked repeatedly. “Yeah, I just… I feel like I’m forgetting something.” She was standing in an elevator wearing a stiff suit beside Jackie who was equally ridiculously dressed. There was a large silver briefcase in his hand that wasn’t the one they’d entered the hotel with. The relic! Of course. They were on their way down to the lobby from Yorinobu Arasaka’s suite.

“Hope you didn’t forget anything,” T-Bug said in her ear. “Don’t know if you’ll have a chance to get back up there.”

“I’m good,” V said and grinned up at Jackie whose face was all twisted up in worry. “Didn’t get much sleep last night is all.”

Her grin was mirrored on his face and he yanked her into his side with a one-armed hug. “We did it, V,” he whispered. “Legends, I tell you.”

“Stay in character!” T-Bug said. “Not out of the woods just yet.”

Separating, V and Jackie suppressed their smiles and tried once again to assume the bored expressions of lifeless corpo suits. It was hard though. After all their planning and preparation, everything had gone off without a single hitch. They had what they came for and no one was any the wiser; all they had to do was walk calmly out of the lobby into Delamain then it was drinks at the afterlife. Her body felt so light. Tingly with adrenaline and anticipation. If only she could remember what she’d forgotten that was niggling at the back of her brain. Had she forgotten to feed her cat?

Wait.

She didn’t have a cat she didn’t think. Why had she been so thoroughly convinced she had? Maybe it was wishful thinking. With the money from this job maybe she could afford to have a real ‘ganic cat imported. Then again, she did remember seeing that little hairless one around Vik’s, maybe it was a stray and needed a good home?

“What would you call a cat?” she asked and Jackie raised an eyebrow at her. “If you had a pet one?”

Not questioning her weird line of logic, Jackie tilted his head back. “Nibbles,” he said at last.

“Nibbles?”

“I dunno, it sounds cute.”

Before the conversation could go any further, the elevator dinged and the doors slid open revealing the lobby before them. Just walk to the exit. One step in front of the other. She glanced up at Jackie who had his eyes fixed on the doors in front, not glancing any other way. V followed his lead best she could but she couldn’t shake the growing feeling that something was wrong. Any second now the alarms were gonna go off, security was gonna flood the building and bullets were gonna start flying.

Any second now.

Any second.

She stepped out into the cool evening in something like shock. Delamain pulled up in front and Jackie carefully placed the relic in the trunk. After a pause, she climbed into the car and retrieved her gun from where she’d stashed it. The doors closed and Delamain sped off away from the hotel into the streets of Night City.

“We did it,” Jackie said like he almost couldn’t believe it. They blinked at each other for a long moment then their faces lit up in unison. “We fuckin’  _ did  _ it!” Cheering he thumped his fist against the seat. “Del! Put us on some music!”

They’d done it. THEY’D DONE IT.

Rolling down the window, V threw her head out, feeling the wind rush through her hair, across her face and her arms as she flung them out and screamed at the top of her lungs. Jackie yelled along with her. Legends. They were gonna be legends. They were gonna leave Night City shaken to its foundations.

Jackie and V.

Names that no one was  _ ever _ gonna forget.

“T-Bug!” Jackie buzzed her repeatedly until she answered. “C’moooon, Bug, admit it. That was fun. You had fun!”

There was a pause then T-Bug’s face creased into a small grin. “Fine,” she sighed. “I guess it was alright.”

“ _ That’s  _ what I’m talkin’ about!” Jackie thumbed V on the back then grabbed her into tight rib crushing hug that she returned as best she could.

“Legends, chica,” he said and she nodded unable to contain a single ounce of her excitement.

“That’s right, Jack, fucking legends.”

Perhaps more sensible individuals would have kept it pretty down low until they were in front of Dex himself. Not Jackie and V who swaggered into the Afterlife, proudly displaying the case to the somewhat bemused patrons there. Even so, the pair’s energy was infectious and soon the whole place was buzzing with excitement.

“Claire!” Jackie all but flung himself on the bar. “Add my drink to the menu, yeah?”

“Gotta die first, Welles,” Claire said but she was grinning. “Don’t worry, Dex told me there was something to celebrate. Drinks on the house but just for tonight.”

“Two Silverhands,” V said automatically. It was the only cocktail she knew here but something also felt right about it. Something about Arasaka and Johnny Silverhand. As she clinked her glass with Jackie’s, her eyes passed through the crowd to the booth where old the fixer, Rogue, was sat speaking with a client. As if sensing her gaze, Rogue looked up and met her eyes. She gave a small nod then continued with her conversation. Something warm but a little heavy that V couldn’t name seemed to shift inside her chest.

Dex called them before V could put much thought into it. “Get your asses up here, we ain’t done yet.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” V said and tapped Jackie’s arm. He downed his drink and followed V to the backroom where Dexter DeShawn, T-Bug and Evelyn were waiting.

Jackie proudly placed the briefcase in front of Evelyn who frowned as she opened it. Her face cleared as she saw the contents intact. “Gotta say, I’m impressed,” she said and offered them a lovely smile. Her eyes glowed blue then Dex’s and then V watched her eddies go up and keep going up. Had she ever even had this much money in all the rest of her life combined?

More drinks came after that, Evelyn agreed to stay for a couple at Dex’s behest. “Enjoy it,” he said. “But you should stay outta this line of work.” There was something in his voice, a subtle threat that made Evelyn shiver and look sharply away. Chuckling to himself, Dex clambered up to his feet. “You kids have fun, Ole Daddy’s gotta work. But good work, you two. I’ll be in touch.” 

There was a strange kind of void in his absence, one that V, already several tequilas down, broke by leaning towards Evelyn and loudly whispering, “Hey, is your friend Judy single?”

Evelyn laughed and leaned forward conspiratorially. “Wanna know a secret? She asked me to find the same thing out about you.” Her eyes gleamed as she sent Judy’s contact details over.

Heat flooded V’s face and her mouth fell open. Equally tipsy, Jackie thumped V on the shoulder. “Call her! Call her!”

“It’s like 2 am,” T-Bug said but she was grinning all the same. “And you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk yet,” V said. Bolstered by Jackie’s energy and the alcohol pumping through her system, V took a deep breath and called.

It was picked up after two rings. Judy’s face appeared, the glow of the computer terminal at Lizzie’s washing her in a cool blue light. “Hey, V,” she said and there was a smile on her lips. “Your job go well?”

“Evelyn didn’t tell you?”

“She did but I wanted to hear it from you too.” The pretty smile widened and V felt her heart do a summersault. 

Clearing her throat, V glanced at Jackie who nodded encouragingly. “Yeah, so, uh. I have a bunch of money now and I was wondering if you’d be cool if I spent it on you? For a date? Or something. That came out wrong. I’ve had a lot to drink.”

Judy laughed and it was the most wonderful sound V had ever heard. It had to be the booze cos there was no way that it should already be such a familiar, comforting sound. She’d barely known Judy a week, she shouldn’t already… already…

“Date sounds good,” Judy said. “Tomorrow night?”

“Y-yeah! Tomorrow. So good.”

With one last smile, Judy blew her a kiss then hung up. V flopped down sideways onto the couch and screamed into one of the cushions much to the delight of her friends.

The rest of the night was a blur of adrenalin, excitement and alcohol. Vague memories of dancing and maybe driving flashed through her brain until she found herself sprawled across the floor with a pillow shoved roughly under her cheek. Sleep was a comforting blanket of calm that draped itself across her mind. She dreamed, at least she thought she did, but she couldn’t remember a whole lot about it, just a man’s voice that she couldn’t identify. Quiet but grew louder.

_ I’m just scared for ya _ .

She woke and the dream was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watched a whole bunch of Jackie scenes to remember how he talks and it made me miss him so muchhhhh


	3. The Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny, Panam and Judy hunt for the pieces for their plan

Johnny was jolted awake by the slamming of the car door. Blinking groggily, he peered over at Judy who was curled up in the seat beside him, her hair all mussed up with sleep. She groaned and forced herself out from under the blanket. In the front seat of the car, looking hideously bright and cheery for a morning that was still pitch black outside, Panam tossed her bag into the footwell.

“Gotcha breakfast,” she called, throwing two vacuum-sealed burritos in their direction. Judy managed to catch hers but Johnny just let his land on his chest. “Don’t worry, pickle free this time.”

“Pickles are the enemy of food,” Judy said.

“Damn right,” Johnny said and forced himself to sit up as well. He squinted down at the brightly coloured label on the burrito but was unable to distinguish any actual ingredients so he trusted Panam’s judgement and began to eat.

“You two are weird,” Panam snorted. In the dim light of the car, the three ate in companionable silence until Panam shoved the wrapper into the side pocket of the door. “You need more sleep or one of you good to come up here?”

Johnny glanced at Judy who had heavy bags under her eyes still. “I’m good, get some more rest, Jude. We need you firing on all cylinders.” He ruffled her hair and she sleepily batted his hand away. There was a grin on her face though. As she vanished back beneath the blanket, he caught a flash of her new lotus tattoo; blue and green just like the ones that V had had decorating her skin, just like the ones that Johnny still wore. They’d all made their changes in the ten months of travelling together on their hair-brained quest. Judy had her new tattoos and gone through several new hair colours; Panam had shaved most of her hair off and Johnny had grown his out, dying it a black as close to his old natural look as he could. Both the women had teased him mercilessly but they’d understood. 

Sliding into the front passenger seat, he grabbed his sunglasses from the dashboard and tucked them into his jacket pocket. “How’s everyone back home?”

“Surviving.” Panam started the engine, the whole vehicle roaring to life. “Mitch and Cassidy got a new gig for most of ‘em. Oh and! Jaina’s had her kid. Little boy, named him Saul.”

“Keeping it in the family, huh?”

“Don’t be an ass,” she snapped. “It’s a way of honouring him.” There was a minor pause as she pulled onto the highway. “You called-?”

Johnny groaned and slumped down in his seat. “Don’t.”

“They’re your fucking friends, Johnny.” Panam tried to keep her voice low so as not to wake Judy but still managed to keep the edge in there. “You’re trying to be a better person, yeah?”

Begrudgingly he nodded. Then he remembered she was watching the road so he sighed, “Yeah.”

“First rule of not being a piece of shit,” she said. “Don’t ghost your friends. Also, settle your bar tab and tip your mechanic.”

“That’s all one rule? I’m impressed you remember it.”

“Bite me, Silverhand.” There was no venom in her words, it was a relic of an old routine, an old dynamic. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her glancing at him. “What’s eating you?”

Not for the first time, Johnny marvelled at how much he had changed. “I’m scared,” he admitted with only a little hesitation. “We’re running out of time.” Panam’s knuckles tightened on the steering wheel but she said nothing and Johnny found himself continuing. “People are trusting me not to fuck this up and I actually give a shit about not disappointing them. So yeah, I don’t wanna call ‘em till I have real news. I don’t wanna have to look Misty in the face and tell her, oh yeah, don’t worry, V’s still beyond the Blackwall but I’m havin’ a grand old fuckin’ time.”

Keeping her eyes on the road, Panam reached over with one hand and squeezed his shoulder. “We’ve got twenty days left. We’re gonna do this.” He placed his hand over hers.

“I wanna believe it, I do.” He hung his head and laughed grimly. “Just dunno if I trust myself to be able to see something like this all the way through to the end.”

“That’s okay,” she said and he looked sharply over at her. She still had one hand on his shoulder, the other on the steering wheel, her eyes looking out into the night. “Trust us to help you.”

“I’ll try.”

They drove the rest of the way in near silence.

*

Gunfire eviscerated the space just ahead of him. Judy grabbed Johnny’s arm and yanked him back just in time to avoid getting reduced to a fashionably dressed red smear on the facility wall. Panting, the pair pressed themselves against their makeshift barricade and considered their options.

“I’m almost out,” Judy bellowed over the noise. “Got a few left for the pistol but shotgun’s basically useless.”

“Could throw it at them!” Johnny laughed. He stuck his hand around the edge of the barricade to fire blindly. Despite what he’d recklessly hoped, he did not miraculously hit a single one of their assailants given the hail of bullets didn’t relent till his hand was tucked away again. “Don’t even know how many fuckers there are.”

“Throw this for me will ya?” She handed him a small device that he didn’t even really take a good look at before he flung it in the general direction of their attackers. There was no grand explosion like he’d hoped, instead, Judy’s eyes flared blue. “Five gonks to the left, three to the right, three turrets in the middle. They don’t wanna get in the way.”

“Turrets explain a lot,” he groaned. “Can you hack ‘em?” Sometime before, after much debate, Judy had agreed to install V’s cyberdeck. Johnny barely used the thing but it had cost a pretty penny and had a whole bunch of features.

She grinned at him then and he grinned back. “Get me three seconds.”

“Right on.” Johnny took a deep breath and then flung himself out from behind cover. Adrenalin from the implants in his head and spine hit his system like a freight train as he poured every reserve into outrunning the near enough solid wall of bullets that followed him. From his perspective, time came almost to a standstill. He saw the world in absolute clarity, watched the glittering paths of bullets as they ripped apart the air. Weirdly beautiful. His limbs seemed to move through thick syrup as he dropped himself down and slid neatly behind a pillar. All the noise in all the world seemed to explode around him as time caught up. He hunkered down as low as he could as the bullets slammed into the pillar behind him.

Then suddenly there was screaming. While the bullets still fired, they were no longer directed at them. Seeing this as his chance, Johnny leaned out from behind the pillar and began picking off those in range with his revolver.

Finally, the world was quiet again.

“Judy!” he called. “You alive?”

Silence.

Panic stabbed through him until she called back, “Just about. Stray bullet got me in the shoulder. Ain’t got any MaxDocs do ya? I’m all out.”

Digging through his pockets as he made his way back, he pulled out an injector. “Got a Bounce Back.”

She was leaning against the mostly destroyed barricade, blood pooling out from beneath her fingers locked firmly over her shoulder. As gently as he could, he stabbed the needle into her arm. Coagulants stemmed the blood flow and painkillers did the rest; was all they could do till they were somewhere decent. Wiping her hand on his shirt, much to his amused disgust, Judy strolled out towards where the turrets still sat in their frames, twitching slightly as they constantly scanned for new targets.

“So what now?” he asked. It was as if the fates themselves had been waiting for his words as at that moment, there was a terrible rumbling and the ground beneath his feet exploded. He was falling. Darkness swallowed him up leaving him with only the distant sound of Judy screaming his name.

How familiar darkness was to him. In all its forms, it had hounded his every step in life. In shadows, in clouds, in great looming spectres. Even death had been its own form of darkness, like sleep but worse. Each time he flung himself back out into the world, the darkness was waiting there, ready to swallow him up one final time and smother him till it was all he knew. Each time he’d clawed his way out through sheer force of will. Each time it got a little harder. Each time it got a little darker and he stopped being able to see any point in climbing out because he knew that it would just be waiting there for him again.

A face appeared before him in the darkness. It was a face he knew so well, eyes that saw straight through him and a smile he trusted more than himself. V held out her hand. There was a rushing in his head, a pounding. With each painful movement, he clawed his way through the darkness to take the offered hand. His fingers grazed the palm and suddenly V was gone. Two sets of hands grabbed hold of him and pulled him from the rubble. Panting, Judy and Panam set him down on the scorched ground and he was able to see the stars in the night above him. Pinpricks of light that promised the dark would never be absolute.

“What the fuck happened?” he groaned.

“Alt tried to absorb the AI,” Panam said, still breathless. “It decided that it’d rather die and tried to take us all with it.”

“Since when did fuckin’ buildings have a self-destruct button?” Judy said, incredulous.

“Ain’t it obvious, Jude?” he asked. “Since they’re owned by gonk corps who don’t give a shit about their workers.” There were bitter, humourless laughs but they were tinged with relief. They’d survived. “We get what we need?”

“Package recovered safely and in the van,” Panam said, patting his shoulder. “We’re almost there, Johnny. Just gotta put all the pieces together now.”

Nodding, he let them help him to his feet. “Alright, let’s go get V.”


	4. The Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> V's strange alternate life continues to grow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> minor TW for vague reference to parental abuse

There was a song stuck in V’s head. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out where she’d heard it before or even anything about it other than a small section of melody that cycled over and over. She hummed it to Nibbles as she scratched the little sphinx cat under the chin, receiving loud purrs in return. Behind her, Judy paced slowly listening intently to a call.

“Let us know if it gets worse,” Judy said coming to a halt. V rose to her feet, stepping up behind Judy to wrap her arms around her waist; Judy pressed her hands over V’s like she was trying to hold her there. “Stay safe, Evie.”

“Everything good in the Clouds?” V asked. It had been just over four months since they’d helped Evelyn take over from the old bosses and make the Clouds a half-way decent place to work.

With a sigh, Judy rested her head against V’s shoulder. “Tyger Claws sniffin’ around again.”

V’s jaw tightened. “Do I need to go give ‘em a reminder?”

“Naw, Evie’s got this.” Kissing her quickly, Judy detached herself and headed towards her shiny new BD editing set up that V had gifted her for her birthday. Their shared apartment was a true fusion of their interests and vocations, like their lives had been carefully unpicked then threaded seamlessly together. “Ain’t you gonna be late?”

“Jackie won’t mind.”

“No? Dex will.”

Sighing, V pulled on her jacket and checked her gun. “Was thinkin’ maybe enchilades for dinner? Mama Welles gave me one of her recipes, told me to try it out.”

“Sounds Nova.” Judy’s eyes shone with affection as she tucked herself into her chair and blew a kiss. “Go give ‘em hell, V.”

“Yes, ma’am.” They exchanged one last look then V forced herself out into the hallway. This megabuilding was a lot fancier than the last. Not corpo money rich but enough that people actually bothered keeping the hallways clean and there weren’t people ODing directly across from your frontdoor. Still rough though, still Night City.

Still humming that fragment of song, V pinged an ‘On my way’ text to Jackie and took the lift down to the parking lot. A news anchor on the screen talked about the ongoing and increasingly public feud between Yorinobu Aarasaka and his father; apparently tensions had started rising exactly around the time of V’s then biggest job ever. Whatever had been on that relic was clearly classified enough that Yorinobu had assumed only his father would think to steal it, fucking prick. That was the problem with Corpos. Always assumed their plans were so big and lofty that the little people had no place in them at all except maybe as collateral damage to be filed into an incident report. With each and every job, V thrilled at proving them wrong. Her car awaited her, engine purring to life as she climbed in. Time to go to work.

Even before V had fully pulled up, she knew something was wrong. Jackie was leaning against the railings outside his and Misty’s apartment, staring at the ground seemingly frozen solid. He didn’t react to V’s arrival until she blared her horn at him causing him to jump violently. The easy grin he faked wasn’t particularly convincing either.

“Mornin’, Jack,” V said dubiously as he slid into the passenger side. “You good?”

“Yeah,” he said and when V raised an eyebrow at him. “Everything’s good, chica. Let’s get this show on the road!” 

Despite his words, he proceeded to stare gloomily out of the window with his arms folded not saying a single word. V tried repeatedly to coax him out. First she asked after Misty but he just paled at that, then she offered to let him play Nice Jackie for this upcoming part of the job to no avail. She tried every possible conversation starter she could think of to no avail. Finally, she swerved into an alleyway and killed the engine. Jackie started getting out, too lost in whatever funk he was in to notice they were in the wrong place, but V grabbed his arm.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she demanded.

He blinked at her. “Nothin’.”

“Lying to my face now, huh?”

“I’m not- I-” Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, he avoided eye contact by studying the detailing on the dash. “Hey shouldn’t we be goin’? Don’t wanna keep Dex-”

V smacked her hand on the dash and leaned over so that she took up everything he was trying to distract himself with. “Jackie,” she said and her voice softened. “Amigo. Whatever’s happened, I can help you. Just tell me.”

There was a brief moment when it looked like he might continue fighting this but then the worst possible thing happened. Big man Jackie Welles crumpled. His face became a pale mess and his whole body seemed to deflate as he dropped his head into his hands. What the- 

“Misty,” he mumbled. “She’s pregnant.”

There was a long pause. Whatever V had thought had been wrong, it had definitely not been anything like this. “Oh, Jackie.” Immediately though, she understood everything. Putting an arm around him, she put her head against his. “You ain’t him.”

“What if I am though?” he said and she could feel him starting to shake. “What if deep down that’s all I ever was and all this was just a lie I told myself to get through the day?”

V tightened her arm. “Cos no one can keep that shit up that long. You’re a good man, Jack. Best guy I’ve ever known and the best friend I’ve ever had. Gonna be an  _ amazing _ papa, I promise you.”

Even though he didn’t look up, she could feel some of the tension leaving him, like her words alone were enough to abate at least some of the worries. “V,” he said and his voice was so heavy, so serious. “Can you promise me somethin’ else?”

“Anything.”

“If I-” There was a tremble in his voice. “If I ever start- If you ever think that I’m startin’ to be dangerous to Misty or the kid-”

“I’ll protect them,” she said. “From anything. Even you.” She pressed a kiss against the side of his head. “But I won’t need to.”

Discreetly wiping his eyes, Jackie cleared his throat and V took it as her cue to get back behind the wheel. As she returned to the road, she could feel Jackie watching her still. “I also asked Misty to marry me,” he said and she almost crashed the car with how fast her head whipped around. “She said yes.”

“Of  _ course _ she did.” V felt a grin break across her face so big it hurt her cheeks. “Fuck, Jack, gonna be a dad  _ and _ a husband.”

“You’re gonna be my Best Man, yeah?” he asked but it wasn’t really a question. They lapsed into silence again, V buzzing with excitement and itching to tell Judy the good news. Then Jackie said something else. “Can’t help feelin’ that something dark’s coming.”

“Too good to be true?”

“Legends don’t get to be legends and live long, happy lives, chica,” he said and returned to staring out the window. The excitement faded. He was right, of course. When Dex had first talked to her, he’d offered her that choice. Dying a legend or dying old. No one got to have it both ways, every person that went down in history died historic but they also died young.

To fill up the silence, Jackie turned on the radio and a song filled up the space. A familiar one. She couldn’t really place it at first till it reached the chorus and she found herself murmuring the words. _“A thing of beauty, I know, will never fade away._ ”

“V!” Jackie grabbed her arm. “V, you good?”

Blinking in confusion, V stared at him then raised a hand to her face as she realised. She was crying.


	5. Problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny runs into complications

“Ready?”

Glancing over at Dakota, Johnny nodded. He took one last look back at V’s clone laid out in its little silver casket, bald and free of any cyberware or tattoos, so still like she was dead or sleeping. Impossible to tell. They had everything in place, the biochip, the clone, all the wires and tech. All they needed now was for Johnny to go let Alt know.

The icebath never got any easier. Freezing cold settled deep into his bones, so heavy, so absolute, that it made him doubt that he’d ever be warm again. The process got quicker though and, within a few moments, he was standing in the glittering plane of cyberspace.

“Johnny.” Alt’s voice didn’t exactly have emotion but he liked to pretend she was pleased to see him. “There is a problem.”

“Shit,” he said. “Fuckin’  _ knew _ this was going too smoothly.”

There was a brief pause. “Your idea of ‘smooth’ is curious. You fell through a building last month.”

“No, I fell  _ onto _ a- What’s the problem?”

Code glittered around him as Alt shifted them (at least visually) through space. He found himself floating in a void, pitch black but for a strange cloud of interconnected webs beneath him that pulsed with some inner glow. “What your eyes are interpreting visually,” Alt said, “is where I had placed V. I constructed a program that would care for her mind, prevent deterioration and keep her safe.” There was a beat. “It has concluded that V will not be safe in the outside world. It is refusing to release her back to me.”

Shit.

“What if V asks it to let her go? Would that work?”

Part of Johnny wished he could just read Alt’s code as she could his, figure out what was happening inside that infinite mind of hers. But he couldn’t so he had to wait for her to verbalise things as succinctly as possible. “It has blocked her memories. She is unaware that she is not in the physical world.”

“Why the fuck did you let it do that?”

Another agonising pause as Alt weighed her words. “It evolved faster than anticipated. There are many things that require my attention, Johnny, I cannot watch her always.”

Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.

“What’re our options? You gonna hack it? Eat it? What?”

Alt’s form shrank and she stood beside him, her features vague but familiar, like looking at someone through frosted glass. “That depends on how much risk you are willing to expose V to. If I attempt a full-frontal assault, it could damage V’s engram or even destroy it entirely.”

“So we go through the backdoor. Stealthy.”

“I am not stealthy,” she said and he thought he caught a hint of a withering sigh. “I am a construct too large and complex for your mind to comprehend. It has defences.” Then he thought her expression turned coy. “You are very simple.”

Probably not meant to be an insult but okay. “So what, you slip me in, I find V and get her to leave?”

“I doubt it will be as easy as that but that is the idea. There are risks. The program could seek to trap you there as well or even attempt to destroy you too. Furthermore, I have no idea what sort of place it has created; V may not wish to leave.”

What would he do then? What could he do then? All of these past months had been driven toward the singular goal of saving her, fixing his last grand fuck up.

“She deserves the choice,” he said. “If she wants to stay then… I’ll let her be.”

Alt appeared directly in front of him. “Will you?”

“Yes.”

“She made her choice before and you did not respect it then. How much needs to happen until she makes a choice that you are satisfied with?”

If this had been his body, his jaw would have tightened, his fists balling at his side. “Dying now or dying a little later isn’t a choice.”

“Becoming a part of me is not death, Johnny. It is enlightenment. It is becoming part of something greater.” She tilted her head. “You don’t believe me.”

“I  _ believe  _ that the real Alt would have had a different opinion.”

Finally, she nodded. “Very well, but I have decided something. If V chooses to stay, I will place her so far beyond the Blackwall that you will never find her again. I will not help you look for her no matter how much you beg or what you offer me. If you cannot respect her autonomy, I will make you.” Perhaps her expression softened then. “This will end. One way or another.”

“Tell the others...” he said, staring down at the entangled light of V’s prison. “Tell em that running with them has been one of the best times of my life.”

There was the briefest pause as Alt glimmered slightly. “Panam called you a wimp and then said, ‘Don’t do anything stupid’. Judy said, ‘Come back alive, I won’t lose anyone else’.” Even in her monotone voice, he could hear them. His friends. Despite it all, they were his friends. It was a shock to the system to think about it, to realise it.

“Pussies,” he said and imagined their yells. Before he could say anything else to annoy his friends in the real world, Alt tapped him on the forehead. Darkness consumed him.

*

Brick pressed against his hands. Johnny found himself leaning against an alley wall, hot city air pressing down on him like a comforting fog. Warm, suffocating, familiar. Oh, Night City, how he’d missed it.

Pushing off the wall, he glanced down at himself automatically and stopped as he found himself looking down at fair skin, tight leather pants and a silver arm. He was… himself? Fuck. Oh, this changed things. Changed a lot of things. Then again, it was probably for the best? If he needed to get V’s memory sparking then looking like himself was undoubtedly better than a twisted doppelganger. Had that been Alt’s intention or was this something else?

Also where the fuck was he?

He stepped out of the alleyway and squinted up at the buildings gleaming in the noonday sun. Watson from the looks of it, Kabuki probably. That wasn’t far. That wasn’t far at all. Though he’d admit it to basically no one, the second Johnny realised how close he was, he set off sprinting.

Stamina was a weird thing in cyberspace. Technically, he was just lines of code that was hallucinating so vividly that it made him think he was in pain. Knowing this didn’t help him in the slightest. By the time he reached the megabuilding, his lungs burned and there were lines of fire running up and down every muscle. It didn’t matter. Not when he was this close. Slamming his fist into the elevator controls, he leaned back against the wall and tried to convince himself that he wasn’t out of breath. How could he be? He didn’t have lungs, there was no air. This was so dumb.

Little had changed since he’d last seen this hallway. Same piles of trash and rusty vending machines and people stretched out staring at the ceiling. One time he’d asked V why she’d picked this place. She’d told him it’d been cheap and was close to her friends, two things she valued above all else.

He paused by the doorway and glanced to the right of it. The tarot card that didn’t exist was no longer there. Whatever fragment of code it had been lodged in the connection between him and V was gone. He didn’t know if that was a comfort.

No one answered on the first round knocking. On the second, something smashed on the otherside and a muffled voice swore. On the third, the door finally slid open and ice water crashed into his stomach. The person standing in the doorway was a stranger. Young guy with messy hair, valentino tattoos and a disgruntled expression.

“Can I help you?” the man demanded.

“Sure,” Johnny said, his voice sounding distant. “A friend of mine used to live here?”

“Well they aren’t here anymore,” the man snapped. His eyes flicked to the side, no doubt where a weapon was hiding just out of sight.

Raising his hands, Johnny stepped away. “Hey, my mistake. You have a good day.” The man sneered and Johnny sneered back before the door closed. Well… shit. Now where the fuck was he supposed to go?

In hindsight it was obvious. It still took him an embarrassingly long time to find his way to Misty’s. Would she recognise him, he wondered? Even if she was just a digital reconstruction there was something so… other about Misty. Like she was tapped into some special feed the rest of them could barely comprehend.

The bell chimed and the scent of incense burrowed into his nose and tried to make a home there. He resisted the urge to sneeze. Behind the counter, Misty raised her head slowly, her mouth open slightly in surprise.

“Good morning,” she called. “Vik’s is out back if…” She trailed off and her eyes narrowed slightly as she looked at him, looked through him. “Are you here for a reading?”

Johnny leaned against the counter. “Maybe? I’m looking for someone.”

The deck was already in her hands.

“Think about what led you here, what you’re hoping to find,” she said, shuffling the deck. The first card was laid out and he knew that one. “The Lovers, a relationship had just reached its harmony when a choice was made but… Justice reversed, it was an unfair choice, the people who forced this to happen faced few consequences and there was no good answer for anyone.” Sounded about damn right. “The Hermit reversed, you are isolated, alone. This may not be unfamiliar but it hurts more than it ever did before. There’s something missing, a hole that you’re desperate to fill.” She drew the next card. “The Star, what you seek to do brings hope, not just for you. But…” The final card. “The Hanged Man. You need to surrender something, let go, don’t try and force the change or control it. Just simply let it happen.”

As Misty swept the cards back into the deck, Johnny leaned closer. “I’m looking for V.”

There was a spark of something in Misty’s eyes and she drew back. “V? Why?”

“I’m-” What the fuck was he supposed to say? “I’m an old friend. I went to her apartment but she wasn’t…”

Still dubious, Misty folded her arms. “She moved to Westbrook, uh, six months ago? No offence but I don’t really feel comfortable giving you her address. You could probably find her at the Afterlife or El Coyote Cojo?” Of course.

“Right,” he said and started heading towards the door. “Could you… could you let her know that…” He trailed off. His name had been on the very tip of his tongue but he was suddenly filled with a cold dread that signalled he was about to make a mistake. “Let her know Robert Linder is looking for her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> featuring my brother's nomad V as the new inhabitant of V's apartment :3c


	6. Solutions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> V's life is beginning to really look up just before it all comes crashing down

Jackie slammed his fist down on the floor. There was the briefest pause as he glared at V’s hand which was laid out flat palm down.

“ Chingada madre,” he sighed, shoulders slumping in defeat.

“Every time, Jack,” V said, grinning widely. “You never learn.”

“Best of… twenty-one, eh?”

The pair were seated in the hallway outside a motel room, guns propped up beside them, no one else in sight. Blood was spattered across the wall and across Jackie’s coat where their latest ‘catch’ had been somewhat unwilling to comply. Wasn’t glamorous work but you had to make ends meet between the more extravagant jobs and working for Dex was always fun.

At that moment the door slid open and the black Jesus of the Afterlife himself appeared. He raised his eyebrow at them. “Do I pay you to sit around?”

“I mean, technically?” V said and Jackie elbowed her. “Don’t worry, I’ve got eyes in all the cameras; if a mouse shits bad I’ll know.”

“And has one?”

“Weirdly no. Think the landlord has a new poison.” She and Jackie got to their feet as one of Dex’s other enforcers dragged the unfortunate tattletale out of the room. There wasn’t a whole lot left of him. “How’s your… rodent problem?”

Dex grinned at that. “Might just have found the nest. We’ll know in a few days so keep your schedules cleared.”

“There goes my trip to Tokyo,” Jackie mock sighed and Dex laughed, his magnificent form shaking as he did so.

“Heard tell that Miss Rogue wanted a word with you back at the Afterlife,” Dex continued as he began making his way downstairs. “Why don’t the pair of you go on ahead? My boys have got some last-minute trash to take out.”

There was a strange gravity around Dex that made it seem like he took the sound with him. Everything was so much more silent in his wake. Like a land recovering from a thunderstorm, or maybe preparing for one.

“Wait,” Jackie said. “He just gave me a bonus.”

V blinked and checked her account. “He didn’t give me one.”

“You think it was a mistake?”

“With Dex?” There was no need to finish that line of thought. “Wait, you don’t think- For Misty?”

“No. No way,  _ I _ only found out last night!”

Gaping with mock insult, V put her hands over her heart. “You waited twelve entire hours to tell me?”

“I haven’t even told mi madre, V,” Jackie said, lowering his voice as if the walls had ears. Knowing this city they probably did. “Speaking of, can you and Judy come to dinner tonight? I  _ think _ she and Misty are all good now but I dunno for sure.”

“If anyone is getting their ass kicked it’s you,” V said, patting his shoulder condolingly. The pair descended into the depths of the building. “And I’m not getting in the way of Mama Welles. That said, I  _ did _ order that thing you asked for and it should arrive by this evening.”

He grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss into the palm of it. “You are a saint. I would be dead without you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” V laughed, swatting him away. “See if it works first.” Out on the street, V’s car gleamed in all its chrome glory. A few bystanders stared at it, eyes wide, perhaps wondering if some corpo or rockstar was around. The latter would maybe be right; she was feeling a lot like a rockstar recently. How could she not? This city was basically hers. Every fixer in the city was lining her inboxes with jobs, she had money, status, a bedroom bigger than her childhood apartment, a girl she was definitely sure she was in love with by her side and her best friend with her through every job. If anyone deserved to feel like something special, she knew it was her and Jackie. Despite Jackie’s misgivings about a darkness ahead of them, V knew one thing for absolute certain. Nothing would take this life from her. She would simply not allow it.

Rogue was busy when they reached Afterlife but that was fine. These days V was a busy person herself. As Jackie ordered a round of drinks, she sat down with a group of solos she’d organised to help Regina with her cyberpsycho problem. It was a continually worsening problem. No matter how many they seemed to take in, there seemed to be two more popping up somewhere else. People were getting increasingly concerned and there seemed to be some growing rumblings around anti-cyberware groups even though the therapy Regina was finding for these people seemed to actually be helping. It was hard not to feel like she was on the precipice of some incoming disaster.

As Claire poured their drinks, some Alt Cunninghams (a recently uncovered recipe), shouts echoed through from the entrance; V craned her neck but could only just make out Emmerick grappling with a dark-haired man. Sudden pain shot through V’s skull. Gasping, she dropped her drink, one hand against her head. The music warped, the lights stretching out like they were neon streamers. Within seconds, it faded. No one around her seemed to have even noticed. Long days maybe, too little sleep. The argument at the door had ceased, whoever had tried to force entry into the prestigious club no doubt realising the futility of such an effort, so V returned her attention to Jackie and Charlotte, an ex-nomad with a personality as bouncy as her green curls, who were discussing recent sightings of a Cyberpsycho in Japan Town.

“Whatever they’ve got in their legs…” Charlotte shook her head and did another shot. “Apparently the gonk was hopping over buildings.”

Nodding slowly, Jackie tapped his thumb against his glass. “Need to pin ‘em down, hack the cyberware long enough to neut ‘em maybe? Any idea on weapons?”

“Maybe blades? No one’s seen them kill,” Charlotte said then added, “Yet. But I’ll keep you posted.”

Over on the other side of the room, she could see Rogue’s current client departing. “Nova, we gotta go,” V said, kicking Jackie who gulped down his drink. Charlotte nodded to them as a farewell and they wove through the crowd towards the legendary fixer’s table.

In the months since the heist, they’d done a couple of jobs for Rogue but V got the distinct impression that they were still being judged. Was it time to find out if they’d passed?

*

“The Crystal Palace, mamá!” Jackie’s hands were waving above his head, his excitement so infectious that it was impossible not for everyone else at the table to get caught up in it. Not that V needed any help. She’d been buzzing since Rogue had first handed them the chip, barely able to contain herself long enough to get to the car.

Mama Welles laughed and shook her head. Between the five of them, dinner lay thoroughly finished with just Judy finishing the last of her capirotada and Misty still smiling slightly at the small vegan version of the meal that Mama Welles had put together for her especially. Seemed the hatchet had been well and truly buried between them. Just as well as V waited till Jackie had finished his talk to subtly shove the small box into his hand beneath the table. To his credit, Jackie didn’t completely lock up. Instead, he just paled slightly then dramatically cleared his throat.

“So, uh, mamá, there was another reason that I wanted all this dinner to happen.” He swallowed nervously then glanced at Misty and V who nodded encouragingly. Judy gave him a thumbs up over V’s head. Taking a deep, Jackie looked up at the ceiling. “You might have to change your name, mamá.” Mama Welles frowned, folding her arms, eyes darting across the four of them with increasing alarm. “I just hope... Abuelita Welles rolls off the tongue as well, you know?”

There was a pause. Then Mama Welles’ jaw dropped open. “You mean- You-” She turned to Misty who nodded.

“Three weeks,” Misty said and Mama Welles took both her hands, kissing them. Tears welled up in most eyes as Mama Welles stood to hug her son and Misty both.

Jackie then cleared his throat again. “Don’t worry, I’m doing this all proper. I asked Misty before but I guess I should be all old fashioned.” Another glance at Judy and V who were grinning, their own hands entwining beneath the table, then Jackie got off his chair and got down onto one knee beside Misty who laughed. “ Misty Olszewski, love of my life, I’d never ask you to change anything at all except...” He dramatically pulled out the box and revealed the ring that V had ordered for him inside. “Maybe your last name?”

There were cheers as Misty nodded and kissed him, then affectionate laughs as Mama Welles burst fully into tears. More food was rustled up in celebration along with wine that Judy had secretly brought along and then yet more food as Mama Welles insisted on making it a proper party. All in all, by the time V and Judy managed to stagger home (courtesy of Delemain) they were thoroughly flushed, warm and very giggly.

“You know weddings,” Judy slurred as V struggled with their front door, “they happen in threes.”

“Pretty sure that’s deaths, Jude,” V giggled and Judy scrunched up her face in the most adorable way. “Though, I think that’s an old rule. They always happen in more than three around me.” Judy snorted and stumbled into their apartment. 

Just as V was about to follow her, pain shot through the base of her skull and she caught the side of the door, struggling to stay standing. There was someone behind her. She knew before she even turned around. It was like she could sense them, sense their eyes.

Putting her back against the wall, she glared at the man stepping out of the shadows. There was something weirdly familiar about him. Something she couldn’t place. But she knew she’d definitely remember someone like him before, silver arms weren’t exactly common.

“V,” the man said like he couldn’t quite believe it. It was just one letter, one sound, but she’d never heard it said with such- such- such  _ reverence  _ before. Like something precious. “V, I know you don’t remember me.”

More pain shot through her head and her legs buckled, knees slamming into the hard concrete ground. The man reached for her but she pulled her gun, pointing it in the direction of his face. “What the fuck are you doing to me?” she growled, flicking the safety off. “Tryna hack me? Is that it? What the fuck do you want?” 

“I’m not- I’m trying to help you!”

The pain spiked. White light exploded in her eyes, blocking out everything, anything. There was a clatter that she realised was her gun and then a noise that she realised was her. The pain grew and grew, she curled up into a ball. “Johnny,” she gasped. Where had that name come from? Who was she talking to? “Johnny, I can’t- I-” Everything in her exploded into flames. Images forced themselves into her mind, horrible things, wonderful things, terrible things. Things she knew but couldn’t, things she remembered but didn’t. A whirlwind of memories that weren’t hers all surrounded by the agony in her nerves.

She screamed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Featuring another V! My friend's this time.


	7. Old Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny strikes a deal

The ground beneath Johnny’s feet was breaking. It caught and tripped at his feet as he ran, every step almost his last. There’d be no falling this time, no Judy or Panam to pull him out, just a world that recognised him for the virus that he was.

“Think I’m scared of you?!” he bellowed at the sky as he skidded around a corner. A wall exploded, rubble spilling out in front of him and a cracked screen riding down with that bore the shining letters ‘YES’. Gritting his teeth, he stamped his foot onto the screen. It splintered beneath him. “You got rules to follow, shit for code. Otherwise you’re gonna rip V apart with you.”

The minor earthquakes transformed themselves into a storm of marching feet. Indistinct figures appeared around him, guns raised. Except they weren’t really guns were they? This was just the anti-virus.

“Kill me and Alt will take you down,” Johnny said, raising his hands to the back of his head for old time’s sake. “She’ll consume this whole thing, you and V both.”

There was a pause then the figures all tilted their heads in unison. “You’re lying,” they said as one. Fucking creepy. “You don’t know what she’ll do.”

“Neither do you,” he said, glaring at the one directly ahead of him. “You willing to risk it? To risk V?”

Another pause. Then as one the guns lowered and each figure to a step back. They parted, revealing a glowing door set into the wall behind them, there were even little lights appearing in the pavement leading up to it. So it wanted to talk huh? Was that it? Well he was never one to deny someone the offer to make a spectacle of themselves, especially if it was a program. Vaguely saluting at the anti-virus personnel, he sauntered up to the door and pushed it open.

He walked into a memory.

A while back, V had found Club Atlantis for him. Not because he’d asked her but simply because she’d been equal parts curious and sympathetic, perhaps even because she just liked him and did nice things for her friends. It had taken some care but eventually they’d found the place, abandoned and boarded up. After a bit of work, she’d managed to get them inside and he’d showed her how to make his old favourite drink. Then they’d sat quietly there and he’d told her about Morgan.

There was a similar feeling in his gut, of nostalgia, fondness and regret as he stepped into the Club Atlantis of fifty years ago. His club, his home. It was busy, familiar faces everywhere he looked, even those that didn’t make sense. Kerry, Nancy, Denny and Henry had never hung out here, they’d certainly never played cards together. They were all their old selves, young, broke and high on life. They raised their hands and he nodded to them but kept going. At the bar he perched on one of the stools and raised an eyebrow at the bartender. 

“This ain’t gonna work,” he said and the bartender shrugged.

A new voice said, “I wasn’t trying to make anything ‘work’.” Rogue sat down on the stool next to him, his Rogue. The one he’d fucked everything up with half a century ago. “This is just an offer, Johnny. I was built for V but I can be adaptable. What happened to you both was awful, you suffered things no one should have to suffer. Let me help you, let me take that pain away and give you a paradise to live in. You can fix any mistake, every mistake.” There was a hand on his shoulder which he recognised and pointedly ignored.

“I’m not staying here,” he said. “I fucked up this life already but V gave me the chance for a better one. No way in hell am I fucking that one up to.” The hand retreated and Rogue’s face hardened. “I made a promise.”

“Who do you think you are?” she hissed. “Coming here and trying to destroy her happiness. You don’t care about her. If you did you wouldn’t be so quick to drag her into a world where her friends are dead and she can barely sleep with the pain. After everything you did to her, after everything you put her through. You haven’t changed one bit,  _ Robert _ .”

There was a tightness in his chest, he didn’t know if it was from him or this thing but it made speech suddenly difficult. “You stole her memories.”

“To take away the pain!”

“She was terrified of that,” he said. “After the Peralezs, she- You know she chose to tell them the truth because she valued what was real over what was convenient. You know that.”

“Of course I know that. I know her better than you ever could or will, I can see her code, her thoughts, everything.” The thing pretending to be Rogue leaned towards him. “I know what she wants before she knows it. She wants to be a legend, I’m making her a legend, she wants adventures with Jackie, I’m giving her adventures with Jackie, she wants a happy life with Judy, I am  _ giving  _ her everything she wants. And, Johnny, she doesn’t want you. I saw her pain, I saw her grief. She’s better off never knowing that you even existed.”

Was that pain in him? Pain because he was scared that it was right or because he knew it was? What had he done for V other than hurt her? What had he done other than make her cry out in pain at night because she could feel him infecting every fibre of her body?

Distantly, he heard her. “ _ The man who saved my life _ .” That’s what she’d said when they’d sat beside his unmarked grave and the fondness in her voice. He’d felt it, her care, her kindness. Despite everything he’d done, she’d cared about him.

“I know her better than you  _ ever _ could,” he spat, slamming his fist onto the bar. “And even  _ I _ don’t know what she’d choose. You can’t decide for her and say you give a shit about how she feels.”

Not-Rogue’s face twisted into an expression of disgust.

“My friends know I’m in here,” he said softly, leaning towards it. “Alt knows I’m in here. Kick me out, kill me, trap me. Do whatever the fuck you like but we will  _ never _ stop finding a way to bust in here to find her. Unless you let her choose.” The thing hated him, at least as much as it was able, he knew that. “Give her the choice, open honest. If she chooses to stay I’ll accept it. Alt’ll send the two of you somewhere so far away that no one will ever touch you again. If you think you know what she wants, then prove it.” He grinned. “Unless you’re scared.”

All eyes in the club had turned his way, he could feel them sinking through him into the code that made up who he was. Reading him, measuring him. Machines didn’t do gambles, they did informed risks, but this one was suffering from the fact that it had only one way of not branding itself a hypocrite and probably breaking some internal logic function. Finally, it nodded and Club Atlantis vanished leaving just him and the thing that wasn’t Rogue standing at the end of a long hallway.

“A reminder,” it said. “Walk down there and when you reach the end you’ll find her.” Then it was gone leaving Johnny alone in the dark.

Reminder? What fucking reminder was this? He hated the absolute pitch black but he wasn’t scared of it. He took a step forward and walls of the corridor lit up with images. Memories. V’s memories. The sounds merged together as he passed each one.

_ “Mom!” _ He looked through her eyes as she stumbled into a smashed up apartment, her mother’s lifeless body on the floor. 

“ _ Jackie! Don’t close your eyes!” _

There was his own voice. “ _ Bird offs herself to express her undying-” _

_ “Stop talking.”  _ Judy’s sobs echoed from the memory of Evelyn and he felt sick.

Panam’s screams for Saul exploded through his ears and he stumbled. The noise was growing. V’s voice was getting louder and louder, her screams, her sobs. He heard every time she was hurt, every time she was in pain.

“ _ At least Hellman doesn’t hurt me _ .”

Another step. Another scream. He closed his eyes but it didn’t help, he could still see every second of it. See her blood on her hand in the shower as she coughed and wheezed, see her face in the mirror covered in blood, see the tears dropping down onto bandaged hands. It wasn’t the screams that made each step so hard. It was the sobs. The broken, wheezing sobs that she couldn’t contain. He remembered each one. Remembered how he’d sat inside her head as she was curled up alone or with Judy and knew he was the reason.

What had he ever done for her?

What had he ever done but hurt her? What had he ever given but misery? How many of V’s loved ones were dead and he was making her go back to that? Who was he to do this?

He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything inside that tunnel except that V was at the end. She was all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found the abandoned Club Atlantis and really wished there had been a mission attached to it. The conversation I referenced is part of a fic I'm working on that talks about Johnny deleting Morgan Blackhand from his own memories (wtf man) but don't worry!! You haven't missed a mission or something  
> Also bonus points for people who catch the Hades Town reference :3


	8. New Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> V makes another choice

When V awoke, she found that she wasn’t entirely sure where she was. She was standing inside a church and she was dressed in a suit, a tuxedo, but there was no one else around.

“Lookin’ good, chica.” Jackie was there, in a tux of his own, hair carefully groomed and a fluffy white flower shoved into his buttonhole.

“What… where are we?” Craning her neck, she tried to look out of the impossibly high windows but there was nothing but white mist outside. “Jackie?”

He looked pensive as he said, “Almost time for my wedding. Just… just got one more thing to take care of.” Leaning back against the altar, he folded his arms. “He’ll be here soon, just puttin’ him through the wringer first, don’t worry?”

“Who?” V grabbed his arm, yanking him off the altar. “Jackie, I- where is everyone? What’s happening?”

Before he could answer, the doors of the church opened and men tumbled through, landing on his knees. V realised he was shaking. Whether it was with exhaustion or emotion she didn’t know. Ignoring Jackie’s call of warning, she crouched beside the man and gently put a hand on his shoulder. He looked up sharply.

“V,” he whispered in a voice cracked and almost gone. The relief on his face was overwhelming, like a drowning man finding land or a starving one seeing food, just the expression of a person who knew that everything was going to be okay. He kept looking at her like that as she helped him to his feet and his face fell as she retreated back to Jackie. “V, it’s me.”

“I don’t know you,” she said. Why did it feel like a lie?”

The man took a stumbling step towards her. “You do. You know me better than anyone has ever known me. You’ve seen me, seen the parts I love about myself, seen the parts I hate about myself. You’ve seen me for everything I am and you decided I was worth saving anyway. When I died… I died, V. The real me is gone and you know that; I’m just a ghost and you know that but you treated me like a person. You know me, V, you do.”

And she did.

God help her, she remembered him. She remembered everything. The two parts of V melded together not with a bang or an explosion but a gentle embrace. If someone had asked her to guess what her reaction to remembering that much pain, that much hurt, would be, she’d have said screaming, maybe falling to her knees. Instead, she just closed her eyes. A few tears burned her cheeks but she took a deep breath, pushing past them.

“You didn’t let me go,” she whispered. “Johnny, why didn’t you let me go?” That relief in his face was back, mirrored by its twin inside of her. How she’d missed him. Even not knowing about him, she’d missed him. 

“It wasn’t fair,” he said. “I- You’re-” He put his hands to his face, pushing his hair back. “Fuck, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I was scared, V, I- I didn’t want it to end like that. It wasn’t fair.”

She laughed at that. “Johnny Silverhand saying something isn’t fair?” There was so much affection in her, she couldn’t hide it, just smiled, then sat on one of the pews. “Come here, tell me what happened, what I missed.” How surreal this was, being able to sit beside him and feel him there. To feel vibrations in the wood as she shifted, to be able to reach out a hand and touch him if she wanted.

Sitting beside her in a church that wasn’t real as the memory of Jackie watched, Johnny told her what had happened. He told her about his deal with Alt, about Panam and Judy, about their adventures across the country to find a way to save her. He told her the little things too; sitting around a campfire with the nomads eating undercooked eggs; helping Panam fix one of the cars, the smell of oil on her skin; waking Judy from a nightmare about Evelyn and then holding her as she cried. He told her about this new life he’d built in memory of her, the friends he’d made. He didn’t have a future to aim towards because it had been her.

“I dunno what’s on the horizon,” he said softly and she took his hand, squeezing it tight. Their eyes met and stayed there black meeting blue. “I don’t know what’ll happen when I leave this room. Could get bombed by militech tomorrow or attacked by wraiths or caught by scavs. Anything could happen, good or bad. I won’t force you to choose that. If you stay here, I’ll understand. Everyone will. All this was worth it just to give you the chance… Even if it’s just to say goodbye.”

“You’d let me go?” she asked. “For real this time? Just like that?”

“I promise.” There were dog tags in her hand that hadn’t been there before and she closed her fingers around them. “V, I’ve tried to do right by you and if that’s what this is then… yeah. I’ll let go.”

Nodding slowly, she slipped her fingers out of his, watched how he grasped the air for a moment before sitting back. Jackie looked up as she approached him.

“This where you say your piece now?” she asked and he grinned.

“Ah, chica, you know me too well,” he laughed. “If you stay, you’re safe here, happy. You can choose to forget this, forget him, but you can remember too if you want.” This time he reached and took her hands between his. “I have so many plans for you, so many adventures but also so much happiness. I can promise you that.” As he said it, she could see in the clouds outside the windows the kind of future that he promised. She saw herself and Jackie, decked out in expensive gear, striding into the Afterlife to the sound of everyone cheering their names. She saw Jackie’s kids, strong and happy and healthy, kids that grew up never knowing pain and only love. She saw herself with them, the best aunt any kid could hope for. One would love to paint and drew all across her skin with coloured ink. Another would be inspired by her and learn from everything they could from her. And she could have her own children, with Judy, if she wanted. Judy, oh Judy. They could grow old together, happily, or they could stay forever young. No pain, no misery, no death. Just soft and gentle happiness from now until the end of time itself.

Anything she wanted.

“It’s beautiful, Jack,” she whispered.

“We’ll be legends,” he said. “Just like you always wanted. Just like you dreamed.”

“I did.” V cupped his face in her hands. “But then you died and I realised nothing was worth that.”

“But I’m right here.”

“I loved you,” she said. “My best friend, my partner in crime. If I could reach back and save you, I would but, Jackie, this is a dream. A lovely, wonderful dream.” She kissed his cheek and rested her forehead against his. “Thank you for letting me say goodbye to him.”

“V,” he began, but she was already pulling herself away. Johnny was standing there, waiting for her. He reached out his hand and she took it.

“Let’s go,” she said. “It’s time to wake up.” Hand in hand they walked through the door and into the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought long and hard about how I was going to end this and threw a lot of possible endings at my poor friends. Finally, at their suggestion, I decided that it would be wrong for me to choose what would happen after this. Just as Johnny must leave it up to V, I will leave it up to you for now. At some point in the future, I may write a sequel for their new life but that can wait. For the moment, you are free to imagine whatever you wish.  
> Thank you for reading.


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New beginnings are forged

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> due to a number of requests, I have decided to round this out with an epilogue and the possibility of more from this group in the future  
> I am so so so grateful and thankful to all of your comments, I see and love all of them, I just don't respond because I am an anxious bean >_<  
> thank you for reading this story and giving me so much love and support!!

There were many types of waking. To the harsh cry of an alarm, to the adrenalin of realising you’ve slept too long, to the chill of finding yourself outside when you did not remember ever falling asleep. V’s favourites were the slow and warm type, where sleep was an ocean that slowly slipped away depositing her in Judy’s arms in the dim light of their tent.

As her eyes slowly opened, she found Judy watching her. Smiles spread unbidden across both their faces at the sight of the other and V snuggled deeper into the blankets, tightening her arms around Judy.

“Mornin’,” Judy murmured and V mumbled a reply into Judy’s shoulder. They stayed there, bodies entwined beneath the blankets as the light filtering through the canvas steadily grew. Maybe if they just stayed there, time would stop.

But the world did not wait and a shadow appeared on the canvas.

“Wake up,” Mitch called, smacking the side of the tent, making it wobble. “Panam just sent word, they’re almost back.”

Both women’s eyes widened and there was a sudden flurry of movement as they scrambled to find clothes in the mess that was their shared belongings. V could hear Mitch chuckling to himself as he walked away but she was too concerned with trying to unhook Judy’s bra from one of her belts. With clothes thrown hastily on, Judy unzipped the tent and V hopped out as she did up her boot. It was finally time.

Judy’s hand found hers as they watched Panam’s car drive into the centre of the camp. Most people continued on with work but several stood to watch as Panam got out. Her eyes lit up when she saw V and Judy and she waved them over.

“How was Atlanta?” Judy asked, releasing V to grab Panam in a hug.

“Crowded,” Panam said and used her other arm to pull V into the hug as well. “But he certainly enjoyed himself.”

V laughed and pulled away, eyeing the car. “I bet he did. He hiding in there?”

Rolling her eyes, Panam kicked the tyre of her car. “Get out here!”

An almost familiar voice came from inside and V felt her heart jump. “Will you give me two fucking seconds. The seatbelt in your shitmobile is stuck.”

“Call her that again and I’m driving you into a lake,” she snapped and Judy snorted.

There was a pause. V felt her pulse begin to quicken. None of them knew what to expect. When Johnny had announced what he was going to do, she’d offered to go with him but he’d said no. Hadn’t explained why but she thought she got it, kind of.

Finally, the door opened and he stepped out. Sighing, he rounded the front of the car and held is hands out. “Tadah.”

V blinked. She hadn’t really known what to expert but at the very least she’d assumed that when he said he wanted surgery that he would go back to the way he’d been before he died. Instead… instead…

When V had been younger, she’d had a big brother that she’d loved more than all the world. He’d died in a gang dispute nearly ten years ago and despite everything, her memories of him had faded around the edges. The man that stood in front of her now looked eerily like her big brother. Johnny had kept her skin tone and some of her tattoos, though he’d added his own, the gender reassignment surgery had altered his bone structure and he’d gained four inches from one process or another. His hair was a little longer than it had been in his old body and he’d tied it back for once. At Judy’s prompting, he removed the sunglasses and she found that he had regained his dark brown eyes.

“Wow,” she said finally as Panam made him do a spin. “How’d you feel?”

“Pretty good,” he said and his voice was almost identical to his old one. “You have great tits, V, but I have missed sleeping on my stomach.”

She snorted. “Didn’t wanna go for the vintage look? Kerry said he could swing the copyright for you.”

“Nah,” he said. “That guy died, ‘sides he was a dick.”

“Such a dick,” V agreed and then she hugged him. He hesitated for only a minute then hugged her back and pressed his cheek against the top of his head. “I missed you.”

At that, he laughed. “Going soft on me?” She felt his fingers trace her neck, over the new J tattoo that was inked there. “Who’s that for? Me, Jackie or Judy?”

“Yes,” V said and stepped away from him. “Now come on, holiday’s over. We’ve got work to do.”


End file.
